Rules
by Catwings1026
Summary: Autistic individuals process traumatic events differently than other people. Following Snake Eyes' "defection" in Nanzhao, Helix must cope with her feelings in her own unique way - by fitting them into her own set of life rules. T for minor vulgarity.


**Disclaimer**: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc. and IDW comics. I'm just one of a large family of fans who likes telling family stories – no profit needed, no profit earned.

**Continuity: **IDW's _G.I. Joe_ Ongoing, set in the time frame of Volume 2, Issue 12.

**Author's Note: ** I need to get the tee shirt I found online that says, "Writer's Block: When Your Imaginary Friends Stop Talking To You." It's a good definition. You can only write when your characters are speaking to you... and for some reason, the characters I like best aren't always the ones bending my ear.

Helix has been talking to me a lot lately, which is odd because I really don't _like_ Helix. Her character, in my opinion, is superfluous, and I don't like the ways she's written. I especially don't like how she's dealing with Snake Eyes and his "defection" - saying that he's dead makes no sense to me at all. What I do like, however, is that she's a high-functioning autistic; trying to write from the point of view of someone with a differently-wired brain is fun, particularly if you're working with emotions that would be difficult for us neurotypicals. In this piece, I'm trying to show a non-autistic how an adult autistic's mind may work, using what I know from teaching, from Temple Grandin's excellent books, and from the blog "Reports from a Resident Alien." I hope I got it close to right. Feel free to send suggestions and changes if I didn't.

Oh - Tri-D Chess is three-dimensional chess of the sort played on _Star Trek._ Just FYI.

* * *

You know what I like about dogs?

They're simple.

Pure.

Easy to understand.

No emotional complications.

No hidden equations.

Plus, they understand Rules. That's a big "good thing" about dogs.

You make friends with a dog, you're friends with that dog. Period. No gray area, no hidden agendas. No question about it - you, dog, friends. Good.

You teach a dog Rules - don't jump on people, don't pee in the house - and they get it. It may take a bit, but eventually, they get it. In a way, being your friend is just another Rule - the Rule of you and the dog. How you are together.

Rules are good. Rules are safe.

And if you break the Rules, if you turn on that dog, if you kick it, if you beat it, dogs are still simple. Depending on the dog, depending on the temperament, that dog's either going to bite you or run from you. New game, new Rules. No wondering about what made you do it, why you're suddenly acting like someone different, what you were thinking. No emotional complications. Dogs live in the moment. Bite or run.

Follow the Rules.

Afterwards, though - after you've broken the Rules - that's where human thinking, neurotypical thinking, comes into play.

Some folks say that dogs forgive unconditionally - if you're a dog's friend, it doesn't matter what you do to it; the dog will always be your friend. The Rule of Friendship prevails.

Others say that you break a dog's trust hard enough, that dog won't ever trust you again. Might wag its tail for you. Might lick your hand. But that's not forgiveness - that's survival. Dog just doesn't want to get beaten again. New game, new Rules.

And then there are others who say that dogs are as different as people, so what might be true for one dog might not be true for another, and that there are so many variables coming into play that making generalizations renders all the data moot. No rules.

Which one is true? How the hell should I know? I'm not a dog.

But what I love about dogs is what I hate about people. People are _not _simple. They are random. Chaotic. They do _not _follow Rules. And when they do follow Rules, they keep changing them. You can't predict how a given person will act in a given situation without a miserably complicated set of behavioral algorithms. And those algorithms change depending on the person, the time of day, the presence or absence of other people.

It's why I don't particularly look for friends. Friendship is way too fucking complicated for me.

Friendship needs Rules.

I'm not a robot. I have feelings. I care about some people more than I care about others. The people I care about are my friends. The people I care less about aren't. See? Simple. It's a Rule. Helix's First Rule of Social Interaction. Caring = friendship.

I tend to care about more about people who are reliable and predictable than people who aren't. Predictable, reliable people are safe. Predictable can mean interesting to me, sharing my black-and-white view of the world, or just emotionally simple and uncomplicated. Reliable means beneficial to my survival in a combat situation. So, Rule #2 of Social Interaction is "predictable and reliable = caring = friendship."

I can plug my friends into my equations. Mainframe likes Tri-D Chess. I like Tri-D Chess. Mainframe is hard to beat. Therefore, I like to play Tri-D Chess with Mainframe.

Rock n' Roll likes loud music. I like loud music. If I am in the mood to listen to loud music, Rock n' Roll is a good guy to hang with.

I have Rules for most people. If I want to spar with someone who can take a beating and still come at me full-on, BeachHead or Roadblock are my guys. If I need to borrow a book, I go looking for Tunnel Rat.

Rules help me understand who to fit into which situation. Don't hit up Alpine for munchies because Alpine likes crunchy granola stuff that tastes like rabbit food - but he's a good spotter for weights or for working out on the climbing wall.

Friends fit into the data set of my world. They follow the Rules.

Except when they don't.

I hate it when they don't.

Autistics like me, our emotions work differently than other people's. Our emotions don't get all muddy and mixed up. We're "compartmental" in the feelings department - it's not that feelings are hard; it's that our feelings don't come out in ways that neurotypicals can relate to. If emotions were colors, most people mix up red and blue and get purple. I get red and blue and purple - three separate colors. No mixing colors for Helix.

Snake Eyes was my friend. I loved him because he didn't mess with my data sets. No words meant that everything came through clear, specific signals. No sarcasm. No tone of voice. No saying one thing and meaning another. He was reliable and predictable. We didn't need words, Snakes and me. We went in, we did our job, we covered each other's backs.

Until Nanzhao.

Suddenly, Snake Eyes is not fitting my data set for Snake Eyes. His body language, his fighting strategies, they're all the same. But his actions - they don't compute. He looks like Snakes, he moves like Snakes, but he isn't Snakes. Not the Snakes I knew. Not the Snakes I can count on.

The Snake Eyes I knew wouldn't set me up as bait for a bunch of guys in red jammies.

The Snake Eyes I knew wouldn't gas me to keep me from following him, and leave me in the middle of the freakin' jungle without backup.

The Snake Eyes I knew wouldn't be shaking hands with a Cobra agent, agreeing to come on board, team up, let bygones be bygones. Cobra is the enemy. Cobra is what we're fighting against. Cobra is bad news, bad guys, bad to the bone, bad, bad, bad.

I cannot understand this. People do not suddenly stop being themselves. It does not compute. My weird brain can't process this new behavior/ old Snake Eyes divergence. It doesn't fit my data set.

So.

New equation.

Two and two cannot equal five. If Snake Eyes isn't acting like Snake Eyes, he isn't Snake Eyes. Whoever this guy in black is, he is NOT Snake Eyes.

Snake Eyes is dead.

I understand death. I don't like it, but I can understand it. Death means someone you care about isn't in your life anymore. Death means that the people around you act different. Nothing works the same way it did before. Old equations need to be erased. All of this fits the current data set.

I can handle this. I've handled death before.

I don't like it, but I can handle it.

Snake Eyes is dead.

"Helix?"

Damn.

"Scarlett." You can't just walk away from someone if you don't want to talk to them. It's another Rule. So I stop. I turn. I look Scarlett in the eye. I can see she's been crying. Her data-set world is all upside-down and ass-backwards, too. I really do not want to stop and talk to her right now, but saying so would most definitely be the wrong thing to say. I notice that she's wearing bright red leather gloves, and I wonder why. Nobody else is wearing gloves. Asking would probably be the wrong thing to say, too.

"Could we talk for a moment?"

"If you want." She's going to want to talk about Snake Eyes. I don't WANT to talk about Snake Eyes. Snake Eyes is dead.

"You were with him when he died." Her voice sounds like she's swallowing broken glass. She's holding one wrist firmly in front of her, arms clamped tight. Broken glass. Gloves. Arms. I wonder if she's been cutting herself. I used to do that, when the meds my folks made me take took away every bit of feeling I had... I couldn't explain to them what was wrong, though, so I just started cutting myself, little neat red lines of pain, to make sure that I could still feel something. When they found out, they changed the meds.

I hope Scarlett hasn't been cutting herself.

"I'm not sure I can tell you anything you'd want to know," I say, trying not to sound unfriendly, but still trying to convey that unspoken message thing that neurotypicals are so good at doing without having to think about it. That _please-don't-make-me-talk-to-you-right-now _thing.

It doesn't work.

"I'm not sure what I'm asking for," she says. _Great. Nothing like throwing me no lifeline at all, Red._So I take a breath, and dive in.

The conversation doesn't end well for either of us.

Later, over a game of Tri-D Chess, Mainframe tells me that what Scarlett needed to hear was that Snake Eyes wasn't in pain when he died. That he wasn't alone. That it was fast. That, maybe, he was thinking of her.

"How the hell would I know he was thinking of her?" I want to know. Snake Eyes never spoke a word to me about Scarlett. Mainframe shrugs, moves a pawn to take one of mine.

"It's just what she wanted to ask, but didn't," he says. I capture his rook.

"Why didn't she ask?" Dial Tone, who's watching us play and trying to learn the game, makes a sound halfway between a choke and a cough. Mainframe shoots her one of those looks that means something to her but nothing to me. I don't say anything, wait for him to answer. That's another thing about Mains. I can ask him questions that I wouldn't ask other Joes. He says I remind him of Seven of Nine from _Star Trek: Voyager_. I never watched the show, but it makes sense to him, so it's cool with me. Finally, Mains shakes his head.

"Dunno," he says. And he gets really quiet, like he always does when he has to think hard about his next move. I sigh, and focus on the game board.

At least SOME things in this life still have rules.

-oo-


End file.
